


Home

by Guardy



Category: Emergency! (TV 1972)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29047926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guardy/pseuds/Guardy
Summary: "Home. Johnny had thought he knew the meaning of that word - a place to put your things and lay your head at night. Utility, and very little else. In a way, he figured he wasn’t entirely wrong - but oh boy had his definition been woefully incomplete."---A companionable silence fills the squad as Johnny muses about the home he'd found. Basically just a couple 'o hundred words of Johnny being really pleased with the way his life is going. Him having feelings for Roy is pretty strongly hinted at, but the story still hovers awkwardly between shippy and gen. One of these days I'll manage to write something that's not just ambiguously pine-y.
Relationships: Roy DeSoto & Johnny Gage, Roy DeSoto/Johnny Gage
Kudos: 12





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt fill for tumblr! The prompt for this one was "Coming Home". 
> 
> Fun fact: This one was written completely on a 1970's typewriter, because that's the kind of hopelessly nerdy I am. 
> 
> Originally posted over on my E! sideblog (including the scanned typewritten version): https://johnnys-green-pen.tumblr.com/post/641411436495667200/

It was winter, late evening and rainy, and the street lamps were throwing rhythmical glimpses of light into the darkness of the cab. Neither of them talked - the day hadn’t been bad, but long, very long, and they were content to let the familiar sound of the engine fill the silence on their way home. 

Johnny was looking at Roy, studying the lines of his face and the shadows flickering across it like he didn’t know every inch of it better than his own, and it suddenly hit him that _this_ was what happiness meant to him - a perfect little moment suspended in time, and there was no place he’d rather be, nothing else he’d rather be doing, and no other person on earth he’d rather be with. He could chart the passage of time by the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof and the distinctive sound of the windshield wipers, and yet the moment seemed to stretch into eternity, and Johnny wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

Home. Johnny had thought he knew the meaning of that word - a place to put your things and lay your head at night. Utility, and very little else. In a way, he figured he wasn’t entirely wrong - but oh boy had his definition been woefully incomplete. 

He wasn’t entirely sure when he’d first figured that out, now, looking back; it might have been way back when he’d first set foot in Station 51 and was greeted by Roy, his new partner, the man who’d somehow seen something in him that made him choose Johnny, _him_ , the eternal weirdo, _him_ , the ridiculous, prickly, cold, undesirable rescue man who’d had the saving grace of being just a little bit too skilled to be laughed straight out of the fire service. Johnny couldn’t quite put into words how that made him feel, what this little kindness really meant to him, but he figured that Roy probably had an inkling, at least, always disconcertingly able to read Johnny like a book, for better and for worse. Sometimes it still made Johnny a little uncomfortable, but it also made him a lot happy, so he figured it all evened out and was totally worth it in the end.

Back then, back when he’d started out there, Station 51 had been completely new territory, not just for him but for everyone - a totally new station, freshly taken into service mere weeks before Johnny’d gotten transferred there, and that had probably helped, too. They were all outsiders back then, no little cliques, no former affiliations, just one big blank slate. The situation couldn’t possibly have been more fortunate for Johnny, and yet he’d been deeply worried about how everyone would react to him, if he’d be a true part of the team or just somebody they happened to work with. Of course, he wouldn’t have had to worry, and in retrospect, Johnny figured he’d known that, even right at the beginning. Or, well, maybe not quite _known_ , but at least strongly suspected. In the end, that was probably the thing that had saved him and his work relationships, had made him give his shiftmates the benefit of the doubt when they’d put their foot in it - which they did sometimes, because as much as Johnny loved them, they were all just humans after all, and that was fine, and Johnny was just human too, and that was _fine_ as well, for the first time in god-knows-how-long.

Home, as it turned out, was also people, for Johnny and the other firemen probably more than for anyone else. Johnny figured he probably should’ve realized that - after all, it was pretty obvious now that he thought about it, but this first realization, this sense of genuine trust born out of honest love and not the necessities of a job in which you _had_ to trust the person behind you with your life, that was when this strange new station first truly started to become his _home_.

He wouldn’t have called it that back then, he’d never been quick to really, truly understand the things his subconsciousness had long since figured out, but it did put him at ease and made his little, grey apartment - his actual, official, socially acceptable home - seem strangely empty and uninviting, no matter how much he attempted to fill it with pretty, sweet company.

Part of the realization came later, much later, after his stout, reliable, blunt old captain had been replaced by a new one, a surprisingly sweet and gentle and sometimes just a little odd man who was just as warm and comforting as the rest of the station, even though it had taken Johnny - as per usual - quite a while to truly notice, and even longer to start realizing that the familial camaraderie of it all wasn’t just a fluke and that he really had nothing more serious to worry about than the occasional latrine duty, because no matter how unabashedly odd he was, he’d always be a part of the family.

And then, Johnny and Roy had been returning from Rampart in the squad one day, much like they were doing right now, and the thing Johnny had said as he’d climbed into the passenger seat, as easy and natural as breathing, was “Let’s go home and grab some dinner, Roy.”

Then he’d frozen and backspaced, going over the sentence, marveling at this new and loaded word that had so subtly snuck into his train of thought, into his life, and didn’t seem too inclined to leave. Johnny figured he could relate. He’d mulled over the word, then, felt out the shape of it, and finally decided that it fit - at some point, Station 51 had become his home, perhaps more than his apartment had ever been (when had he last called that thing home, he wondered), even though he wasn’t quite ready to admit that, and what it would mean for his priorities and the state of his social life. To his surprise, he’d found that he liked it, though. Liked the way 51’s bricks were filled with memories, especially liked the way most of them were good ones.

First arriving at 51’s that fateful day, being introduced to the Squad by the man who’d irreversibly changed his life for the best with quiet conviction, had been the first steps of finally, finally coming home.

“...”

“... Johnny? Hey, Johnny!”

“... huh? Whuh?”

“I’ve been talking to you for an entire minute,” Roy said, calmly enough to not disturb the serene atmosphere. “Something bothering you?”

“Nah, I’m fine. Just… thinking.”

“Oh dear.” Roy smirked, then grew serious again. “Good thoughts?” he asked.

“The best,” Johnny replied with a wide, toothy grin. He looked at Roy, took in his face, still ruddy from the cold, and those bright eyes that Johnny loved so much, not because they were blue or pretty but because they were _Roy’s_ , and sighed a content little sigh.

“Let’s go home, partner.”


End file.
